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Edwards Pushes Wage Issue on the Stump

By Adam Nagourney July 24, 2007 6:16 pmJuly 24, 2007 6:16 pm

GEORGETOWN, S.C. – Former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina continued one of the lines of attack he made at Monday night’s debate today, challenging his Democratic opponents to support an increase in the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour.

Mr. Edwards, leaving no doubt of the potency he sees in the issue, raised it twice on his own, one time after holding a roundtable with South Carolinians on environmental issues. Mr. Edwards, whose language has been taking on a distinctly populist pitch in recent weeks, reminded the audience that his opponents had said they supported the recently passed increase in the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, but declared that was not enough. (That increase began inching up today, to $5.85 an hour.)

What mattered, he said, was the future, and what the candidates would do to push through future increases in the minimum wage.

One unexpected appearance on the trail: When Mr. Edwards and his wife Elizabeth arrived this morning for a breakfast with supporters in Charleston, S.C., waiting for him were his elderly mother and father who had arrived from North Carolina. His wife embraced both of them, after she walked in the door.

Edwards’s my second choice for the presidency after Hillary Clinton. He has definitely angered my about using his wife to split women, which I consider a major character failing.

The minimum wage has lost just about all its purchasing power. The Republicans never want it raised. They want to get rid of it. I agree with Edwards on the need to focus on the minimum wage.

Helen NYC(#2)–You seem to have reservations about the minimum wage. Could you live on it? Could you also save and invest if you earned the minimum wage? I could not. I wouldn’t even think of working to live in poverty. Minimum wage jobs are poverty income jobs.

I agree what you said about the minimum wage not even keeping one in line with the poverty level in this country. If you have a poverty income, you are living in poverty at or below the official level. However, the statistics that the government uses to determine the official level are completely unrealistic. At the the offical poverty level, nobody alone could rent, buy food, pay for electricity, a telephone, a bit of clothing, just the basics. I will not even mention medical or dental care. If the government statistics reflected the real cost of living decently, many, many more people would be counted as living in poverty.

Edwards seems to be the most compassionate of all the candidates, and for a number of reasons is my first choice for president. You’re right Dan, it is impossible to live on minimum wage. Anyone who doubts this should attempt it and see for themselves.

Edwards wants to continue what Johnson started– the elimination of poverty. Every American deserves a good quality of life, yet the poverty levels in this country are a disgrace. We must work together and push for some much needed change.

John Edwards also wants to index the minimum wage to inflation, I believe, so that as the cost of living increases, the minimum wage goes up automatically. I guess that move would also cause some to keep inflation down, which would be a positive.

Edwards poverty theme should have have higher priority for bringing back jobs to America over the minimum wages.Even if enacted it’s zero sum game as more jobs will move out to low wage job locations outside US and in any case the undocumented immigrants are already there to work on the ‘current’ wage rates.

Edward’s is right. At $9.50 an hour, and 40 hours a week (which many minimum wage earners don’t get) you would be able to barely support yourself; a tiny apartment, food, cheap clothes. You can pretty much forget about medical care.

If you want to have kids, or save money for retirement, you need to earn a lot more. Even with both parents working 40 hours $9.50 would still not be nearly enough.

Just for the record I am speaking from experience here; I worked for wages between $7 and $11 for 2 years before I went to college, which was 4 years ago. I was able to pay rent and eat ok, but like I pointed out before I was only supporting myself.

The minimum wage should also automatically correct for inflation. Not to bash Edwards, cause he’s right, but it seems to me like a pretty obvious thing to do. They should also consider adjusting the minimum wage to the cost of living in each state, or perhaps each county. $9.50 an hour might be doable in Ft. Meyers Florida, but in the Bay Area it wouldn’t be nearly enough.

Lets see; Mr. Mozilo(Country Wide Mortgage) has sold and pocketed 380 million worth of stock in the last five years. He enjoys the same tax rate 15% as a person that made minimum wages for the last five years. What is wrong with this picture. Mr. Edwards is the only candidate speaking out against this kind of unfair wages, taxation, and greed. Where are the rest of them?

-Most people who earn the minimum wage are students, teenagers, etc, who work to earn extra spending money.
-What incentive would minimum wage earners have to go to college or get job training if they were able to earn a comfortable income working fast food?
-Increasing the minimum wage causes inflation to go up, making minimum wage earners’ money worth less.

Apparently I stand alone in feeling that raising the minimum wage is not the answer to the problem of poverty in this country. I understand that full-time, minimum wage job isn’t sufficient to even make it to the poverty level but I don’t think a job where a person makes only minimum wage should be their long-term career plan anyway.

What about programs to promote better a yourself so that you can better your life? Provide the assistance needed – financial, educational, maybe even just daycare assistance – so you don’t have to STAY at a minimum wage job.

Isn’t there a saying about teaching a man to fish versus giving him a fish? Funny how those basic truths get lost along the way.

Constantly raising the minimum wage is probably not the best thing for American employers.However, you cannot trust employers in this country to pay a fair living wage. They have the attitude that they are the ruling class and everyone else is just here to serve their purpose.Bush has no contact with the American mainstream. Employers have no contact with the common low wage workers welfare. Its not that they don’t care; they just don’t see it. Electing someone that wants to put a focus on common America is a chance that is long overdue. A president of the United States can give the employers a focus on the ordinary man instead of the constant drive to get rich regardless of who or what it hurts. They have to see it to change it.

I participated in the conservation round table in McClellanville. John Edwards gets it. Believe me. I am as open-eyed, worldly and cynical as they come and this man really gets it and is sincere in his pledge to enact big change.

Including and enforcing environmental and labor components of trade deals by itself will make a huge difference. That will: help save the atmosphere and oceans, save U.S. worker’s jobs, help workers in developing countries, save our domestic seafood industry from unfair, environmentally destructive competition from southeast Asia, and a whole lot more.

And the bottom line is this: If climate change destroys the world economy and ushers in the new “dark ages”, do things like abortion, gun control and so forth really matter?

Edwards has the only concrete plan to address global warming so far. That implies he is better suited to hit the ground running than any other candidate.

As for Democrats, it’s time we elected someone who WILL win the general election and Edwards has the best chances.

To Patia (Post #12). You are not taking into account the fact that there are many, many people who don’t necessarily have the mental capacity to advance beyond minimum wage or low paying jobs. People that are perfectly able and willing to work, but would never be able to make it through a college course. The current minimum wage sentences those type of people to a life of poverty with no opportunity for health insurance or retirement savings. Raising the minimum wage could be the rising tide that lifts all boats (or at least many more boats than if the tide continues half-heartedly pulling only from the top). But future trade agreements have to protect these jobs. I don’t know when/if NAFTA can be repealed or reworked, but it needs to be if possible.

If edwards can close on his promises to put the people ahead of corporate interests in this nation he has my full and unwavery support. sadly I am highly skeptical of his ability to close on these promises and his integrity to follow through.

the republic has been lost to corporatism. we live in an oligaian state where the wealthy have institutionalized means at controlling the masses (lobbying, campaign financiing, no bid contracts, etc)
A return to a true republic, where the people’s interests are served before those of the super rich/industriy owners begins with a repeal of tax cuts for the super rich, a repeal of subsidies for well established industries (oil), lobbying reform, campaign finance reform, tax reform (Gravel has the best ideas on this, and the cue de gras: a return of the Constitution given powers of Congress to control the currency of this nation.

This would do wonders if the Congress did everything it is supposed to do. controlling the currency is a fundamental aspect of every governemnt, yet our federal government signed it away in 1913 with the federal resrve act.

these are major reforms that are greatly needed. People need not fear change as all of these potential changes are in the best interests of the vast majority of the people (over 80% of the population). This would create a new America where it trul is the land of the free. the question is who is brave enough to spear head the necessary change? Edwards? Gravel? Kucinich? Richardson?

IMO Clinito will keep the status quo as would Biden and Dodd. Obama is hard to peg, but all the money from hedge funds leads me to believe he has special interests leading the way for him instead of the pulse of the people.

Minimum wage should be set above the national poverty level; otherwise, we as a nation are condoning indentured slavery of a large segment of our own fellow Americans.

The concerns that this would adversely affect the corporate profit margin are nothing but scare tactics by those that refuse to acknowledge that ever rising profits and multi million dollar bonuses earned by CEO’s are financed by the tears of those that must try to make ends meet on wages that are below poverty level.

Corporations that threaten to relocate out of the country should be slapped with high duty tariffs on their product imported to the US – lets see how they like to lose their biggest market – I am sure this would open up the field to smaller innovative companies with more concern for the markets they service.

MSM continues to promote HRC and Obama because so much big business/corporations have put money into them. Just the health care industry alone gave Clinton $800,000. How can the people be helped in any way when a president is being payed off by profit before patients corporations with stock on Wall Street? So, I want the very person that big business is the most afraid of…………JOHN EDWARDS…….and most people I’ve talked to like HIM the best! I hope the primarys reflect that.

1) I have to doubt that. Besides, a lot of the jobs that teenagers do are tipped labor (waiters, for instance), and thus have lower minimums

2) This assumes that no one has a desire to learn for learning’s sake, which I’m sure we can agree is not true. For the people who either can’t or don’t want to go to college, why should they suffer lifelong poverty?

3) Inflation will decrease the value of what people earn regardless of how much they’re paid.

Your assertion that the majority of people who earn minimum are in fact students and teenagers is not accurate–according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It is an urban myth–propagated by conservative opponents of minimum wage laws in general.

And is usually tied to the argument that imposing minimum wages–at any level–or raising them to something remotely resembling a “living” wage–is inflationary, unfair to small businesses and/or will destroy jobs.

None of which has been borne out in states and communities that have gotten tired of the Republicans’ obstruction of efforts to raise the minimum wage at the federal level, and have enacted higher minimums within their jurisdictions.

On this issue–as on so many of the other truly pressing issues facing this country, John Edwards is providing real leadership.

How about Mr. 400 haircut do something to educate the folks making the min wage. How about finding ways to help support and fund ways to educate this folks. Instead of paying them 9.50 to flip burgers or greet me at the front door of Wal-Mart.

The minumun wage = an income subsidy for upper-income white teenagers.

Here is one effect of the minimum wage. It causes some inner-city minority kids, stuck in crappy publik schools (thanks you, Dems), to drop out of high school. WOW! If there is a guarantee for poverty, dropping out of high school is about as close as it gets.

And, if ever there were a prescription for poverty…we can count on the Dems to find it and endorse it……because…if, like the Dems, you are going to “represent” the downtrodden, you have to make sure a downtrodden class always exists.
This is why Dems endorse policies that harm the poor while opposing policies that would help them.

Tis a shame that there are so many dullards on the left, so ignorant of economics, that they actually believe the pandering of this ambulance-chaser, a smarmy lawyer who made his millions exploiting the poor.

What an astonishingly ignorant post by X-Rapt! It amazes me that so many people forget America’s history, when the “stealing from others to pay their own way” or for unearned enrichment was done not by the Dems but by the ruling class, whose heirs now enjoy the fruits of their ancestors misdeeds and suffer from selective memory. They took advantage of the ignorant poor back then, stealing their property, denying whole classes of Americans the right to equal education and opportunity. “Why worry about America’s poor? I’ve got what I need and I’m going to get all I can because of the privelege I enjoy (i.e. Being born into anything but poverty; my education; class; race; intelligence, etc.), and besides, it’s not my fault some people have to live that way.” It seems this selfish attitude is prevalent among those who have enough money. The “downtrodden class” that Bob Brown’s post refers to continues to exist not because of Dems representation – that’s absurd! It is perpetuated by the need of wealthy Americans to remain that way. Who else would pay an unfair share of taxes and work those undesirable jobs so that the priveledged class doesn’t have to? At least the Dems have the decency to want to provide opportunity for the working poor to get ahead by granting them a realistic living wage. It seems likely that less robberies would occur if this could be implemented, which would result in a savings to us all. Unless you’ve lived on minimum wage yourself, you can’t possible know what the truth is, or speak intelligently about it, no matter what economic knowlege you profess. For the record, I am a caucasian female in her 40’s who has had to live on minimum wage in the past and can attest to the difficulty of “getting ahead” and out of the minimum wage sector when everything you make goes to the basics. It is a fallacy that the poor “choose” to stay poor – does any child have a choice of which family they’re born into? To hold the poor at fault for their fate is a simplistic, egotistical and prejudiced mindset that allows most folks to feel justified that things are okay the way they are today. Anyone with a conscience and basic intelligence, even the dullards on the right (or left) can see that the inequities are there because of our shared past history and laws that favor the advantaged few over the majority of Americans. I believe an honest reality check is needed – a wake-up call for Americans who hold false notions about poverty and wealth. I plan on supporting the candidate who proposes a change in the status quo. One who knows what needs to be done, and has the guts to face a congress that turns a blind eye towards the reality in front of them while giving themselves yearly raises, full-pay retirement and free medical care for life, to name a few atrocities. May the truth prevail!

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